Music recording and reproduction of music has taken many forms, including vinyl recordings, cassette tapes, and now CD-ROM discs, among others. However, while it is possible to read the label from a vinyl record or a cassette tape while music is being reproduced therefrom, typically, when music is being reproduced from a CD-ROM disc, the disc is spinning at a high rate. Additionally, the disc is typically retained within a player, thus either not allowing a view of the disc, or only allowing a partial view of the disc.
Multi-disc CD players pose an additional problem in identifying a disc which is being played or in identifying any of the other discs which are stored within the player and not being played. Multi-disc players include types in which discs are loaded one at a time, or types in which discs are first placed in a multi-disc cartridge, and then the cartridge is loaded into the multi-disc player. In either case, a plurality of discs are retained within the player and are hidden from view. The number of discs can be any number up to 200 discs or more. However, since a user cannot view the discs, the user cannot be sure which discs are within the player unless the user retains a separate list of the identity of each of the discs and the disc's position within the multi-disc player. If the user wishes to play a song from a particular disc, it may not be easy for a user to select that disc out of the plurality of discs from the player, perhaps requiring the user to listen to a beginning portion of each of the discs to determine its identity, which is a very time consuming process.
In order to remedy this problem, some multi-disc players have allowed a user to enter a small number of characters to be associated with a particular disc. The user inserts the disc into the player and then selects a sequence of characters, perhaps the title, to be associated with the disc. These characters are retained in memory in the player with the code of the disc. Anytime the disc is selected to be played, the associated characters are displayed. While this is an improvement, the user is required to enter the information, and the information displayed is very minimal. Also, the user can only view the information when a disc is selected, and thus this process is very slow. In order to find a particular desired disc, a user must still allow the player to read at least the lead code on the disc, search the player memory, and display the associated characters, also a somewhat time consuming process.
Recently, new discs include additional text information regarding the contents of the disc which can be read and displayed by the CD player. Thus, a limited amount of information can be displayed. However, most CD-ROM discs do not have this information included on them.
Additionally, even the discs that do include this information contain only a most limited amount, due to memory constraints, as well as display constraints. Since a typical CD player is likely to have only a small LCD display, only a small amount of information can be displayed at a time. Furthermore, any information contained on the CD must be fixed at the time the CD is produced. Thus, no updated information can be provided.
Therefore, it would be beneficial to provide an apparatus and method for displaying updated information about a particular disc on a CD player, even if the information is not included on the disc.
It would also be beneficial to provide an expanded interface to allow for viewing of extended, updated information, and for aiding in manipulation of disc information.
Audio and video systems typically have many components, including tuners, CD players, video disc players, video tape players, audio tape players, amplifiers and the like. While many systems are partially integrated, it would be beneficial to provide a complete system which is also able to display updated disc information, and which is coupleable to an expanded interface.